DREAMCATCHERS
by Diademic
Summary: Canon-verse/alternative ending. SasuNaru. In a world where there is no death, life comes at a price. Naruto is plagued with nightmares of a disremembered past, Sasuke must decide his fate, Obito has chosen to forget, and reality is just a matter of perception.
1. Chapter 1: Hurry up, we're dreaming

**SUMMARY** _Close your eyes now, it's all just been a bad dream._ In a world where there is no death, life comes at a price. Naruto is plagued with nightmares of a disremembered past, Sasuke must decide his fate, Obito has chosen to forget, and reality is just a matter of perception.  
**PAIRINGS** [NARUTO] Sasuke/Naruto, general  
**RATING/WARNING** PG-13 for profanity.

**AN:** So I'm sure this has been done before, but the idea would NOT leave me alone. I tried to stick as close to canon as my writing style would let me, while also keeping a "dreamy" feel. I'd say this story is an "alternative ending" fic. I've been re-watching Naruto lately and I just started watching Shippuuden for the first time... and seeing it animated... is eyegasmic. Also eargasmic because the music is ace. SORRY NOT SORRY.

So I wrote a Naruto fanfic. Why? Because all my feels. I like Sasuke and my opinion of Orochimaru has changed to one of like as well. Villains. Gotta love 'em. Ugh why do I do this to myself.

This story is complete at seven chapters, 20k-ish. I'll probably post a chapter a week or so. So yeah, enjoy? :D

* * *

**DREAMCATCHERS**

_We didn't need a story, we didn't need a real world_  
_We just had to keep walking_  
_And we became the stories, we became the places_  
_We were the lights, the deserts, the faraway worlds_  
➳ M83, Intro.

It is nothing like a dream. Dreams are fluid and ephemeral, they shift and blur and scatter and recollect. Dreams make sense one moment and the next, they make none. Dreams are consistently inconsistent-and so is life.

Naruto wakes to insistent pecking against glass; beyond his small hospital bed and table, and beyond the window, sits a large crow, scraping its beak repeatedly against the partition, impatient beady eyes glaring with unknown intelligence.

It's cold outside. And damp. Naruto remembers thinking, it's nothing like a dream.

Dreams are goals. They are wishful and hard-working and full of promise. They are the hopes for the future and the memories of the past. Dreams create, and they also destroy.

There's no rain, but the sky is heavy and dark with thunderheads.

The machine linked to his arm beeps. Once, twice, as if its just now noticed he's awake. Alive.

It takes only seconds for a nurse to scuttle in, clipboard in hand, wearing a vibrant smile that did not match the weather outside or the dim glow it cast upon the fluorescent lights of the hospital.

"Did you have a nice rest?" The nurse asks him, checking his chart, "Uzumaki Naruto?"

Naruto's first instinct is to ask, "Where the hell am I?" which he quickly replaces with, "How the hell did I get here?" It seemed like the more logical question. He can't remember much; his mind is drowsy and idle like a rusted engine.

The nurse pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "You suffered a severe head injury during a mission last Friday. You've been here for five days. How are you feeling?"

"My head's all foggy." Naruto slumps back into his pillows, arms crossed. He remembers now, in hazy bits and pieces. "Wait. Does this mean-"

The door slides open, and before he can continue a familiar voice is chirping, "Naruto! Finally!" Even her green eyes are smiling with relief.

"Sakura!" Naruto's face lights up, eyes crinkling into his feline grin.

The nurse hooks the clipboard at the edge of the bed. "I'll have the doctor swing by to approve you for discharge." She nods politely to Sakura and slides the door shut behind her.

Sakura takes the seat beside Naruto's bed. "You took some serious damage back there, you know," she reprimands. "Sasuke and I were afraid you'd never wake up! But like that'd ever happen, right?"

"Huh?" Naruto stares dumbly at her. Oh, right. The mission. He'd been sent to Wave on an errand, basically. "Ah! Not again!"

"You need to stop trying so hard." Sakura sighs, crossing one leg over the other. Naruto's utterly crestfallen expression makes her laugh. "If you keep getting carried away on missions, Yondaime will lower your rank."

"Shit." Naruto mutters, crossing his arms. "You don't have to chastise me. I get enough of that from my mother."

"There's always next time." Sakura shrugs nonchalantly. "Anyway, I just dropped by to check in on you. Thank the Kyuubi you're a fast healer."

Kyuubi. The word shapes itself in his mind's eye, before images and memories flood past, subtle but strongly influential. There's a shrine not far from his apartment. He'll have to pay his respects later.

"Yeah." Naruto nods.

"And it's a full moon this Thursday." Sakura smiles at him. Her hair has grown long, and she wears it in a messy bun, a jade pin with bloodstone droplets dangling from it. She's always been beautiful, Naruto thinks absently, and at twenty she is shining. "The viewing ceremony is at the crest this month. Are you coming?"

Team seven is given a mission early the next morning, and as upset as Sakura is that she's going to miss the viewing ceremony, ANBU do not question orders.

Naruto can't help himself when he drops in a few minutes late, he scowls fondly when he sees Sasuke leaning against the wall, looking for all the world like he was asleep.

Kakashi is later, no surprises there. "Yo. Here." He hands them the debrief files.

Sakura flips through hers, skimming through it quickly. "Hospital patrol? Suna? What's the deal?"

"It's a request for a medical team." Kakashi says, but he still sounds vague.

Naruto furrows his brows. "Then why us?"

Sasuke tosses the file onto the desk, pushing off the wall. "Sakura is the best medic in the village after Tsunade."

Naruto rolls his eyes. "You finally decided to join the team?"

"Well," Kakashi intervenes, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "The official request is for a medical team, but it's been written in code. There's rumors of a floating market making the rounds in Suna. Its next appearance is scheduled for the abandoned hospital in the City on the Beach. You are to report to the Kazekage tomorrow evening, and he will give you the mission details."

It's nearing one in the morning, and they're on the border between Konoha and Suna. They've stopped in a small onsen town to get some rest. Across the high walls, Naruto can hear Sakura humming in the women's spring. He's currently looking for Sasuke, however. It's easy enough to find him. He's on the roof of the traditional-style hotel, puffing on his kiseru and looking up at the large, vibrant moon.

"You're so predictable." Naruto greets, a friendly grin spreading over his face.

Sasuke shrugs, blowing smoke up towards the stars. "I prefer to call it routine."

"What's the difference?" Naruto snorts, coming to sit beside him. "Sakura was pretty upset we couldn't go to the ceremony."

"It happens every month." Sasuke sighs out more smoke. "I'm glad of it."

"Because it was on the crest? That's why Sakura was so excited. The Uchiha haven't housed a ceremony in years. Since before you were born, right?"

"There was one time..." Sasuke fades off, tapping the cached bowl of tobacco over the edge of the roof.

"One time what?" Naruto leans in, interested and intent. It's like he's literally hanging off of Sasuke's words-waiting for the memory to be spoken, remembered, and stored away. Something about that order seems off, but Naruto pays it no mind.

Sasuke hesitates. Only around Naruto does he let his guard down enough to show emotion. It must be painful to be so tense all the time.

"I was seven. Itachi was twelve, and following custom, he was to be betrothed to one of the feudal lord's daughters."

"Something tells me it didn't go as planned?" Naruto asks.

Sasuke sits up, resting his arms on his knees. "Things never go as planned with him."

"You think too much, Sasuke." Naruto gets to his feet. "There's a remedy for that." His eyes hold a prurient promise, one they are both all too familiar with. Neither will ever admit just what it means, though.

Naruto wakes drenched in sweat and out of breath. He's alone, but he can't shake the feeling he's being watched.

The scenes of his nightmare ricochet in his mind's eye, nine wisping tails destroying forests in one swoop, the control in his maniacal hands. Red eyes bleeding with morose anger, pairs upon pairs. Dust and dirt and sweat and tears and more blood. The fighting never stops, the enemy he cannot see.

A crow caws from outside his room, signaling the sunrise.

He'd forgotten to pay his respects to the Kyuubi, Naruto thinks, and it's easy to write off the dream as a colorful figment of his imagination.

They make it to Suna with time to spare, dropping onto the balcony where Gaara's already waiting for them, hands behind his back and lined eyes steady with patience.

"Long time no see!" Naruto greets, shoving his mask off his face without aplomb and pulling Gaara into a man-hug.

Gaara acquiesces, but his expression remains solemn. "There's not much time. I've got a meeting soon." he guides them away from the public eye. "For the past three months, we've only heard word of the market, but one of our spies sniffed out the next location." He pulls a scroll out of his robe and hands it to Sakura.

She opens it, makes a queer face, and reads:

"In the first day of Waning,  
The floating market will come to be  
in a place in between the black and the white,  
the brightest sphere;  
Is the mind a key?  
Then the door is right here."

"That is the riddle you must answer to gain access to the black market. This is not an ANBU mission, it is an undercover one."

"That's all fine and dandy, but what's the answer to the riddle?" Naruto questions, hands on hips.

Gaara shakes his head. "Only those who have entered the market will know."

"How are we supposed to get in, then?" Sasuke is not amused, taking the scroll from Sakura to skim the verse himself.

"I think it's referring to a genjutsu. The whole market is probably shrouded in one." Sakura suggests. "If we're going undercover then-"

"You'll have fake identities of sand nin. Come with me." Gaara leads them into his office and out into the main hall of the Kage building. They wind through a maze of staircases and rooms until Gaara slides the door back to a small, more private grotto, mottled shadows from willow leaves shifting in the breeze. It's a hybrid of a room, looking out onto a closed in garden; one with the earth and with the urgency of secrecy.

Temari materializes from the shadow of the tree, an unpleasant look to her eyes.

"Temari will set you up. I have another matter to attend."

"When we come back, lets get some drinks together, okay?" Naruto calls after him, and Gaara raises a hand in acknowledgement, shutting the door as he goes.

Temari flips the switch and light floods the room. "You can leave your ANBU gear here, it will be safe." She hands them each a folder.

Naruto complains. "More paperwork? I'm a ninja for a _reason_."

Temari rolls her eyes. "These are your identifications. Naruto, you are the attendant to the young Suna lord, Haruki. Sasuke, you are the young Suna lord, Kurosawa Sousuke." She goes on over Naruto's even louder complaint about their roles, "Sakura, you're also a lady from Suna, Minami Mio."

"Why do I have to be the manservant?"

"Don't complain." Sasuke is rifling through the expensive robes tailored for the mission. Heavy. Annoying.

Sakura, however, is delighted. A brilliant kimono, purple with prints of dogwood branches, sits folded before her.

Naruto just frowns at his common livery.

Life is so not fair.

They are dismissed for lunch, strategizing until it's time to head to the floating market on the coast; the riddle is still giving them trouble.

"I wish Shikamaru were here." Naruto sighs out his frustration. "He'd be able to figure this out."

"He is here." Temari replies, having been puzzling over the poem with them, though she wouldn't be attending on the mission: Leaf nin had been requested due to the fact they wouldn't be recognized at a Suna event. "I've already got him working on it. I'll go check up on him." she rises, before disappearing in a swirl of sand.

"Maybe we'll just have to go and figure it out." Naruto scratches at his forehead.

Sakura shoves him over roughly. "Forget the riddle for now. With Sasuke's sharingan, I'm sure we can find our way in. We're not going to cause any trouble this time around. This is an information gathering mission. What are they selling? Why? Who runs the organization? These are the questions we need to find the answers to."

Sasuke soaks all the information in, musing silently to himself. He might be able to find something of worth at the market. There's a sword he's looking for in particular. An oblong chokutō. He's been dreaming about it lately.

"This market isn't top secret." He says after a short bout of thoughtful silence. "It's underground. That means thugs and missing nin and twisted feudal lords and ladies. We can't let our guard down for even an instant. It would be best if we split up and communicated via radio."

"Good plans." Naruto nods amiably.

Temari appears along with Shikamaru a few minutes later. Shikamaru unleashes a heavy sigh.

"Did you figure out the riddle?" Sasuke asks him.

"Not even a hello? Thanks." Shikamaru grumps. "I have an idea about it, you could say."

"He's thinking it's an adapted translation of one of the Lost Scrolls." Temari cuts to the chase.

"That's basically it." Shikamaru nods.

"What are the Lost Scrolls?" Naruto looks confused.

"That's not what matters." Sasuke knows what they are. The Uchiha family has a few of their own. "Do you know which the verse belongs to?"

"Yeah, I just got to that when Temari snagged me." Shikamaru shoots her a mildly annoyed glance. "It's the Festival of Darkness-the Lost Scroll on death."

"Death?" Sakura racks her brain for a familiar sentiment. "I've read that before. What stanza is the riddle?"

"Fourteen. And the answer is in the closing verse." Shikamaru hands them an unraveled scroll. "This is just a replica, but it's here:

"Sealed away by hatred  
Locked into place by blood  
The end will never end;  
In a world full of truth  
The key lies in death  
And death tells the only lie."

"Creepy." Naruto comments.

"Memorize it." Sakura commands him. "It's time to get ready."

Temari leads Sakura into the neighboring room to help her change into her kimono. Shikamaru lingers with Naruto and Sasuke as they prepare.

"So what're you doing here, Shikamaru?" Naruto's voice is muffled as he pulls the tunic over his head.

"Sorry, I'm not allowed to talk about it." Shikamaru replies lazily, staring up through the willow tree's drooping branches. The sun is setting.

"Was it just to see Temari then?" Naruto teases.

Shikamaru's expression remains deadpan. "Say what you want."

"You're not allowed to talk about it, or you don't want to?" Sasuke finishes knotting his hakama, black and simple, and slips into the geta waiting for him.

"Both." Shikamaru says darkly. "But I can tell you this: you're going to be dealing with it soon. And it's not going to be pretty."

Sasuke is tempted to threaten Shikamaru into telling him, but that would be counterproductive. He tosses Naruto his radio-band just as Temari emerges from the adjacent room, followed by Sakura, dressed to the nines.

She's glowing with smug joy, and catches the radio Sasuke tosses her gracefully. "Is it okay to say that I'm looking forwards to this mission?"

"You don't have to say it." Sasuke replies. "It's obvious by the look on your face."

"It's not everyday a girl gets to wear such an expensive kimono." Sakura chimes. "Thank you for letting me borrow this, Temari."

"Please be careful with it."

"It's _yours_?" Shikamaru seems shocked.

The last thing heard in the briefing room is the sound of amused laughter.

"Hey, hey." Naruto chimes loudly. They'd been driven by coach to the coastal city's outskirts, and were continuing on foot into the darkening nightlife. "I was just thinking. If they're quoting the Lost Scrolls or whatever, do you think they have them? What if they're for sale? Shouldn't that be, like, in a museum?"

"I wonder what else they might have." Sakura muses as they shuffle along.

"We'll find out soon enough." Sasuke points ahead. There's a clearing on the forested path they'd been following, and a few hundred yards ahead is the visage of the abandoned hospital containing the floating market.

A solitary figure stands outside the chained entryway. They approach casually.

"Names." says the greasy-haired gatekeeper.

"Kurosawa Sousuke. This is my manservant, Haruki."

Sakura smiles politely. "Lady Minami Mio of the Hidden Sand."

"Hmm." The gatekeeper is satisfied with their introduction. He repeats the fourteenth stanza of the Festival of Darkness. Sakura quotes the response. They are let in without a hitch.

Sasuke has to forcefully keep his sharingan in check as they walk through the wall of illusion and into a busy, loud, over-stuffed building full of stalls and displays and all sorts of strange smells.

"Hearts! All kinds of hearts sold here! Hearts of fortune, hearts of prosperity!" shouts one scraggly old woman.

"Forbidden techniques, super cheap! One time deal only!"

The steady murmur of commerce fills the place with a new kind of life, and the genjutsu lights the hospital as if it were early evening, the sun just dipping past the horizon.

"This is weird." Sakura mumbles under her breath. "It doesn't feel like an illusion."

"More like..." Naruto searches for the word. "We just stepped into a bubble of somewhere else."

"Eloquently put, idiot." Sasuke can't help but tease him.

"Feh." Naruto flips him off. "We should split up here. I'll take the top floor."

"I'll take the second." Sakura says. "Radio only if you have an emergency, got it?"

Then the first floor is Sasuke's. "They've got tight security." he says, "Eyes open." before they go their own ways.

Naruto has to try not to get carried away. There are lists of interesting, if not questionable or unexplainable things, available in the market. Cursed weapons, jewels containing the souls of spirits, forbidden techniques stolen from hidden villages and clans. Anything and everything, it seems. He's scooting past a clump of men betting at a stall racing weasels when he spots it.

There's a small booth squished between two food stands, glittering with trinkets and unspoken promises. Naruto's eyes are drawn to a small wooden box, varnished with reds and blacks and adorned with the print a vexed fox.

The seller behind the booth is shrouded in a dark hood and subsequent shadows. "You have the blood of the fox running in your veins, eh, boy?"

"Hah," Naruto's not falling for it. But the delicately painted box-the fox-reminds him of his nightmare. "Saying something catchy isn't going to coerce me to buy anything. I'm just browsing."

"It is not your money I'm after." replies the cloaked woman, painted nail pointing to the trinket Naruto's eyes had first been drawn to. "Do you know what this is?"

"Don't tell me," says Naruto, "It's a kitsune, trapped in a box."

"No mere box could trap a kitsune. It would take a much larger container than that." says the woman, chastising almost. "It is a wish box."

That piques Naruto's interest. "What's it for?"

"Write your wish on the scroll inside, burn it, and store the ashes in this box. It will make your innermost desire come true."

"My innermost desire, huh." Naruto contemplates the intricate box for a couple moments, before thinking, why not. "How much?"

The woman's shadowed lips curl into a smile. "For you, there is a discount."

Naruto walks away with the box and a mostly empty wallet. He can't help but think he was ripped off. He keeps his eye and ears attuned to anything abnormal, but everything is abnormal, so he's not sure what should tip him off.

The top floor is less crowded than the previous two, but still crammed into every nook and cranny are foods and caged animals and trinkets and scrolls and weapons of all sorts. Naruto pretends to examine a set of short swords, simplistic in design, before a strange chakra floods his senses.

He whips his head around; the genjutsu about the market seems to be unraveling. He drops into a defensive stance. Shit. He'd gotten carried away again.

Sasuke sweeps the first floor quickly and efficiently, picking up through gossip and hapless chatter the rules and regulations, rumors and habits.

"Market's not really for material trade, though." had said one browser. "I heard top floor sells destinies. In bottles!"

"Third floor?" another had said. "You've gotta be invited up there. It's no joke."

Apparently floor three is serious business. Floor three is where Naruto is. Had he been allowed entrance, or sneaked in?

From the mic hidden within his ear, he hears Sakura key in. "This is ridiculous." she says, "Apparently, the organization running this market is called Akatsuki. Their agenda is profit related. Nothing special. Do you two copy?"

"Copied." Sasuke replies. There's a short pause.

"Naruto?" Sakura pipes in. No response.

"God _dammit_." she hisses.

Sasuke concurs. They meet at the west-wing staircase, wide and busy with foot-traffic, and he explains what he'd gathered as they ascend the last two flights towards the first floor. Another guard sits before a large metal door, painted in black, white, red. This one is much more collected and confident.

"Lovely couple like you shouldn't be interested in the likes of this floor."

Sakura turns her charm on. "What are the likes? I've been so curious."

It doesn't work. "You need an invitation to enter here. Got one?"

Sasuke is getting impatient. "Is that so?" he says, "Then tell me why my manservant managed to get lost on this floor."

The guard looks a mite confused. "Must have been some manservant." he grouches. "He'll come down."

Sasuke's eyes flick to Sakura's, and she makes a tiny nod. Seconds later, the guard is lying unconscious on the floor. Sasuke yanks open the door and they slip quietly into the madness.

"You," comes a slithering voice out of an unknown darkness, letters rolling off into strange sounds, "smell interesting ~"

"What do you want?" Naruto demands, all aspects of his usual happy-go-lucky self have been replaced by a tense focus. He closes his eyes, since he's always sucked at dispelling genjutsu. Behind his eyelids, he sees only blackness.

"Open your eyes, and see what I have to offer."

Naruto opens his eyes. Before him is a booth he hadn't noticed before, full of jars and bottles, some empty, others filled with unknown things. The man running the stall is as pale as death, pupils slitted. There's a mephistophelean twist to the smile on his lips.

"Who are you?" Naruto is still on guard.

"My name is Orochimaru. I am the merchant of fates and the trader of dreams." he leans forward, long hair spilling over one shoulder in a quiet _hiss_. "And you, I can sense it very strongly, are tirelessly searching for a new fate."

"Not interested."

"No matter." Orochimaru laughs delightedly. "All fates are bought at a price, but not all dreams can compensate for them."

A hand clapping down on Naruto's shoulder startles him out of his trance, and when he blinks, the mysterious merchant and his jars and bottles have vanished.

"You!" Sakura exclaims. "This is what I mean! You don't take this seriously enough. Lets go. We are not allowed to be up here."

"What are you talking about? They let me in." Naruto decides to keep that last strange happenstance to himself.

"Why?" Sasuke has narrowed his eyes at him. Naruto returns the skepticism.

"Because I'm fucking awesome. That's why."


	2. Chapter 2: Mare imbrium

_I woke up, I was stuck in a dream_  
_You were there, you were tearing up everything_  
_Set my body free, the silver tack is in the moonlight running_  
_And the wind in the trees, singing "Do you believe?"_  
➳ Mikky Ekko, We Must Be Killers.

They return in the dawn hours, file their reports, and are sent home by noon. Winter is just ending and spring is overtaking the land, so the crisp chill to the endless blue sky makes for the perfect weather. It really felt like nothing could go wrong, if somewhere as peaceful as this place continued to exist.

"We won't be able to follow-up with this mission until next month." Sakura says, "But at least we know where it will be."

"In Konoha." Sasuke replies, stopping short on a tree branch. Naruto and Sakura stop a few ahead of him.

"I guess it really is our problem now." Naruto says, haunted by the memory of the serptentine man and his creepy M.O. "I have a hunch they're not just after money."

"I'm starting to think you might be right. They're dealing with something much more profitable than money." Sakura agrees. "We'll have to make the next market the last one."

They startle a rook of crows when they start moving again, sending hundreds of black birds chirping into the sunset.

The village is serene, as always. Naruto drops by with the team's report, handing it directly to his father.

"How did it go?" The Fourth smiles up at his son from where he's seated at the Hokage's desk.

"Easy as a breeze." Naruto chirps, rubbing the back of his head and grinning like a fool. His father doesn't go easy on him just because he's his son, so whenever Naruto returns with a good report, he can't help but be proud of himself. He knows his father will be pleased.

"Good to hear." says the Hokage. "Go say hello to your mother. She hasn't seen you in weeks, and you know how she gets."

"Sir." Naruto salutes, half in jest, and disappears from the office. Before that, though, he needs to pay his respects to the Kyuubi.

There are several shrines in Konoha alone to the deity; legend speaks that once the nine-tailed fox roamed the land freely, causing chaos and destruction in its path, until one brave and powerful monk told it the secret of life, which was, according to the legend, the truth in all things: love.

Cheesy as it was, Naruto has no reason to disrespect his ancestors or their beliefs. He jogs up the steps and stands before the stone statue of the Kyuubi, inarizushi and other offerings lying along the figure's base. Naruto rings the bell and claps his hands, saying a small prayer of thanks and throwing a few coins into the well beyond.

_Is that really all you've got to give me?_

"What?" Naruto stares down into the well. Nothing. He spins around. Still nothing.

_We share much more than that._

Naruto furrows his brows. "...Kyuubi?"

_Kurama_. corrects the nine-tails. _Don't act so shocked._

"Er," Naruto's a bit freaked out. "I'm sorry I'm paying my respects so late. It's just-"

_Shut up._ Kurama cuts him off. _And turn on your fucking brain. I don't have the energy to wake up. Too much of my chakra is being used to maintain this shitfest of a world._

Ouch. "Are you calling me an idiot? Cuz I'm not. And what's so wrong with peaceful times?"

_Open your eyes, Naruto._

The presence dissipates then, and when Naruto questions the Kyuubi again, he gets no response.

"Talking to yourself?" That is a voice he recognizes.

"Sasuke." Naruto turns to see him several steps down the steep, forested hill leading up to the shrine, hands in pockets and looking expectantly up towards him. "What are you doing here?"

"It's the largest, most prominent shrine in Konoha." Sasuke replies. "Do I need a reason to take a stroll somewhere quiet and secluded?"

"Well, excuse me for disturbing you." Naruto responds dryly, plopping down onto one of the stone steps. "Say, have you ever..." he trails off, wondering if he should be voicing these thoughts out loud.

Sasuke hums noncommittally, waiting for him to continue.

"Have you ever felt like you were going crazy?" Naruto says, "I mean, I've been having these nightmares lately, but they feel so real, and in them, I'm controlling the Kyuubi-no, it's more like, I _am_ the Kyuubi-"

"Are you trying to claim that you're a god, Naruto?" There's trenchant amusement in Sasuke's eyes. He tucks his hands into his long sleeves and joins Naruto on the step, sitting beside him and extracting his kiseru, packing tobacco into the bowl.

"I'm not saying that, but I'll take it as a compliment." Naruto grins.

"I've had a few strange dreams myself." Sasuke admits, flicking a match. "Instead of foxes, there are snakes. Every time, one of them hands me a sword and says, 'Uchiha, this was the path you chose. You cannot turn back.'"

"What do you think it means?"

"That's the reason I came here, actually." Sasuke exhales a plume of smoke. "The head priestess of this shrine is a dreamseer. She might be able to help you out, too."

It so turns out Sasuke has connections to the shrine. Rin is the name of the head priestess, Obito Uchiha is the name of her husband. Which makes her an Uchiha by marriage, as well.

"Sasuke, it's so nice to see you," Rin guides them into the tearoom, "I've been expecting you. But not you, Naruto. It's an honor to finally meet you." She smiles sagely at them, shuffling with her heavy, traditional kimono to her seat across from the low table. A miko brings them tea.

"Me?" Naruto points to himself. "An honor? Finally, somebody who recognizes my potential!"

Rin laughs. She's a plain woman, in her early thirties, but there is an ethereal beauty about her. She keeps her hair over one shoulder, and her brown eyes are full of arcane wisdom. "Are you here about a dream as well, Naruto?"

"This guy dragged me along." Naruto replies, jabbing a thumb at a choleric Sasuke.

Sasuke shakes his head, opening his mouth to deny the statement.

"Hush." Rin shushes him, "I already know why you're here. I have dreamt many things, because I've already fallen into eternal slumber. You haven't. You have time, but not much. Decisions will have to be made that will be painful. Many others will find eternal sleep. This is inevitable."

"Uhm," Naruto scratches at his nose. "Decode that for me please?"

Rin shakes her head, a smile playing at her lips. "You must decide for yourself." She nods towards Sasuke, "Now, your dream."

Sasuke leaves out no details-and the bitter animosity, the bloodstained blade, the deprecatory snakes, the spiral of self-hatred and remorse remind Naruto of his own nightmares, so vivid and realistic they feel like a part of himself-like a forgotten memory.

Rin remains focused on him, but her eyes are seeing something else. Perhaps they see the dream itself. "Serpents are a sign of malevolence, and they are also a sign of wisdom. That one has given you a double-edged sword insinuates a crossroads: a path of vengeance and betrayal, or a path of honor and closure. This dream is a warning, Sasuke, to consider your choices carefully."

Sasuke does not like the sound of that one bit, by the sour look on his face. Naruto's not particularly happy about it either.

Rin turns her umbrine gaze onto him. "You paid a visit to the Kyuubi, and he paid a visit to you, didn't he?"

"How'd you know?" Naruto feels like an idiot as soon as the words have left his lips. She's the head priestess of this shrine; for all he knows, she can read his mind.

She just smiles at him, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I know your dream. I have seen it many times."

"What does it mean?"

Rin closes her eyes. "There's no cheating, Naruto. You must remember on your own."

"Remember what?"

"A nascent dream, long disremembered."

Sasuke recognizes the poetic flow. One of the Uchiha's Lost Scrolls. He picks up on the first stanza, quoting: "I have walked the earth a man, only to wake up the world."

Rin nods along, "And the world knew nothing of the man."

Sasuke crosses his fingers before his face, expression distant, analytical. "But dreamt of dreams it could not have."

"Well done, Sasuke. I didn't know you had an interest in literature."

"Hey, what about me?" Naruto frowns from his cushion, pointing to himself. "Don't I get any help?"

Rin leans over towards him and ruffles his hair. "You don't need my help, Naruto. But I do have some advice for both of you." she adds, getting up to escort them to the entrance. "Reality is a matter of perception. What is real is not always true, what is true is not always real. Remember that, boys."

Left with laden words, Naruto and Sasuke bump into Obito, who had just returned from a mission of his own, as they are exiting the shrine. He's a cheerful bastard, the type that everyone loves because he loves everyone. Naruto watches how his face lights up when he sees Rin, and how hers is cast in a veil of sadness that is so painfully familiar it makes his chest ache.

Sasuke doesn't wait up for him, so Naruto jumps the steps three at a time in order to catch up.

"It's not so bad." Naruto tries to assuage him. "They're just dreams."

"They're not just dreams." Sasuke replies flatly. "Were you listening to anything Rin said?"

"I was listening." Naruto's tone grows more coarse. "A bad omen is a bad omen. It's not your fate, Sasuke."

"What do you know about fate?" Sasuke shoots back, feeling capricious. He's up for a fight. "Nothing has ever gone wrong for you."

Naruto's hands curl into fists, and he's not sure why that statement rings so false; he shouldn't be angry at the truth, so the words that leave his lips, and how convicted they sound, feel foreign to his tongue. "That is a _lie_. Take it back."

"Shove it up your ass, Naruto, and get lost. I'm not in the mood."

Of course, fighting words like that request the exact opposite from Naruto. "You fucking bastard!" he hisses, "You have no idea what I've been through to-"

"To what?" Sasuke eggs him on, one brow raised and a steady smirk on his face. "To feel equal? To be acknowledged?"

That's the final straw. Naruto lunges for Sasuke and they're tumbling down the last of the stone steps and into the dusty street before pushing away from each other and launching again, one fist thrown, dodged, returned, blocked, quick and practiced footwork-they're sparring, not fighting. That is, until Naruto lands a kick into Sasuke's gut that sends him flying across the street and into the grass ditch a few yards away.

Sasuke starts to laugh.

"What's so funny, asshole?"

"What the hell are we getting so worked up about?" Sasuke says, distracting Naruto, because next thing he knows, he's pinned against the fence with a kunai at his neck and two more tacking his sleeves into place. "I'm the only one who should be furious." Sasuke's sharingan spin ferally in his eyes.

Good question. Naruto would be wondering why himself had Sasuke not been so close. He can feel his breath on his face. The last time they had been this close was when a sword, not a kunai, was raised to his throat-

It's like remembering a fragment of an old dream. And it's gone just as quickly.

Naruto growls, determined not to be outdone so easily, swinging his legs up and forcing Sasuke back, ripping free from the kunai. "Because you're a fucking twat who doesn't know when he's gone too far."

That one seems to get to Sasuke. Hah, thinks Naruto. He's got some verbal ammo too.

They fight until well after sunset, down the line of the ditch on the street until it pans out into a large canal banking the left side of the village. They fight until they have exhausted their chakra, and are both lying spread-eagle in the dirt catching their breaths.

Rin's words still weigh on Sasuke's mind. Naruto doesn't need help, does he? Well then, Sasuke doesn't either. They have been equally matched for years.

Years and years whose memories feel so diluted and short, like time was twisting in and of itself and rewriting its own lines. Over and over.

A morbid sense of dread drenches Sasuke, colder than his own sweat, and his breath catches in his throat.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Naruto asks him.

"No." Sasuke replies easily.

"You don't even know what I'm thinking."

"That's the point, dumbass."

"Whatever." Naruto's too tired to argue. "I was thinking, my dad's about to excuse the older ANBU members. I'm pretty sure Itachi's one of them."

Sasuke frowns. "That has nothing to do with me."

"Sensitive spot?" Naruto rolls onto his side, grinning over at Sasuke with smarm. "It does. It means that Itachi is going to have a genin team soon. And it means we only have five more years before we'll be excused and stuck with kids too."

"By then, you'll be Hokage and I will refuse the excuse."

It's pretty much set in stone, and that should bother Sasuke, but for some reason it doesn't.

Naruto rolls back onto his back, propping his head with his arms and staring up at the watercolor sky. "I was hoping you'd say that. You're my right-hand man, dude."

Sasuke can't help himself. He smiles into his palm. "I'm left-handed, idiot."

They are given another ANBU rank mission after a two day break; two days, which for Naruto, had been full of recurring nightmares and visions of devastation and catastrophe. And in every one, the Kyuubi says, "Open your eyes, Naruto. _Open your eyes_."

Sasuke has been restless. He'd gotten little sleep since Rin's revelations, and the sleep he did manage had been light and dreamless.

He's in a dark mood when they congregate for the debriefing, and preoccupied, ignoring Sakura's voice of concern. He doesn't notice the tired bruises under Naruto's eyes, or the dulling glimmer to their pale blue.

Kakashi is as sharp as ever, though. "Can you three handle this?"

"Of course." Naruto says, slipping his foxen mask over his face. "I was born ready."

Sakura masks her face just before her grimace can be seen.

"Sasuke?" Kakashi looks at him, brows raised. "What's distracting you?"

"Nothing." Sasuke pulls his mask on as well, the face of a raven. "I'm not."

Kakashi shrugs. "That's everything then. You can thank Shikamaru for the intel."

If Sasuke could see behind the ANBU masks, he'd suspect Naruto's expression is just as suspicious as his.

"What the fuck is this?" Sasuke almost laughs, an incredulous, almost angered noise. Naruto's porcelain fox face stares blankly back at him, one arm guard cracked from a near miss with the creature.

"Did you hit your head?" Sakura shoots back, only mild concern laced in her tone. Her hands are locked in a seal, summoning strength before swinging into the battle.

They are not fighting people. Sasuke doesn't move, doesn't bother to attack. Naruto and Sakura dispose of them with little effort. The bells hanging from Sakura's boar-shaped mask tingle only when she lights the ground in front of Sasuke, tilting her head at him curiously.

"Seriously, you're weirding me out."

Naruto's silent, standing over the misting bodies of the deceased. They are rapidly decaying, Sasuke can smell their pungency from yards away. Naruto seems to soak it in-and that's when Sasuke notices. His sharingan swirl before he's even thinking. Naruto has two sources of chakra. Blue as the ocean, and red as hellfire. Seeing the two commingle, twisting together like old friends-Sasuke can't quite pinpoint how it makes him feel. Neurotic, almost. It makes his gut tighten. A bad premonition. But when he blinks, the ominous red chakra is gone, leaving only Naruto's untapped life-force coiling calmly about him.

"Naruto!" Sakura calls out to him. "What the hell is going on with you two?" she huffs.

Naruto always responds to Sakura, an easy poise overcoming him. "What's up?" he says, pulling his mask away from his face. Blue eyes below arched brows watch Sasuke expectantly, as if willing him to do the same.

Sasuke pushes his mask over his hair and steps past Naruto and Sakura, ignoring both of them, and stooping down to inspect whatever it was they had just killed.

Naruto comes to stand over where he's crouched. "They're called baku. Don't ask me why, I don't know."

"The hidden village of Dreams operate these things." Sakura kicks one of them over. "I don't even know if they're really alive to begin with. You didn't read your debrief, Sasuke? I'm shocked. This isn't the first time these things have shown up. And it's been happening more frequently lately."

"Yeah." Naruto's voice sounds foreboding. "Something's wrong."

The trek back to the village is spent in contemplative silence. Naruto's usually the one to keep up the banter, Sakura encouraging the conversation, while Sasuke remains silent and stoic because that's just how he is.

He doesn't need an excuse that _something's_ wrong.

But something is wrong. He can feel it in his bones. He's felt it for a long time now, and he has a hunch that he's not the only one.

Naruto paces his cramped one-room apartment with a hand stroking his chin, deep in thought. On the floor before him, sitting amidst the green silk it had been wrapped in, is the small, ornate wish box Naruto had been swindled into purchasing. He hasn't even opened it yet.

He's not just going to jump into this one. If there were some kind of genjutsu inside, he'd be completely fucked. Death was no imminent threat, but an endless illusion almost sounded worse.

His window is wide open, inviting the fresh breeze. The moon hangs low in the sky, illuminating the trees and buildings surrounding his apartment.

Naruto had considered lighting candles, but that seemed too hocus pocus. So instead he finally comes to a stop in front of the box, collapses his legs into a pretzel, and stares down at it. Now or never.

Naruto opens the box, and inside, just like the woman had said, lies a tiny scroll. He fiddles in his knapsack for brush and ink and unravels the parchment, and he's back to square one.

A wish. His heart's innermost desire. Naruto frowns down at the box. Why a fox? Come to think of it, Naruto hadn't seen any other boxes with designs on them. This is all he had seen. His eyes had only been drawn to this ridiculous witchcraft.

That's it. He must have been tricked from the start.

"Fuck it!" Naruto exclaims, dipping his brush in ink and scribbling onto the scroll. He rolls it up without aplomb, lights it ablaze, and drops it into the lacquered box. Only once the parchment turns to ash does Naruto close the box, sealing its tiny lock.

Silence follows. Of course, Naruto thinks, there's no such thing as instant gratification. Of course, he doesn't see the seal on his stomach swirling into visibility, though his belly does feel a bit warm. Then his stomach grumbles. He's hungry.

Ah well. Naruto doesn't put a lot of stock into it anyway. He's always known what he's wanted. One wish might not sum it all up, or maybe it does perfectly.

That's what he's not so sure of.

* * *

So, a few notes on the Japanese terms used in this chapter/throughout the story ~

Baku: A creature of myth, which has been said to resemble a tapir. They eat nightmares more or less.

Kiseru: A smoking pipe... like Yuuko's from xXxHOLic.

Chokutō: Straight-sword.

Inarizushi: Deep-fried tofu stuffed with rice and other shit sometimes. Kitsune are said to like this dish.


End file.
